Editorial

I Don't Deserve a Mother as Good as Mine

May 2, 1999

About two months ago I discovered that the Sega CD system I bought was scratching all my CDs. A few days later, I told that to my mom over the phone, and how frustrated I was that I couldn't play my old games and that I couldn't update my web site. She mentioned that she was going to send me my old Genesis and Sega CD from Puerto Rico, but I didn't believe she was actually going to do it.

Then, a few days before Easter, I received a large package. It didn't really surprise me, since she ussually sends me candy for Easter. This box seemed awfully large for candy, though. I didn't want to spoil Easter, so I forgot about the box until then.

Easter finally came, and I proceeded to open the box. For a second a thought crossed my mind that she might have sent my my old video game systems, but I dismissed the thoughts again, saying that it would be too expensive to send it here. Then, as I opened it, I saw the familiar pattern of black squares with white borders. No! It couldn't be!

Indeed it was! My mother actually sent me my old Genesis and Sega CD machines from Puerto Rico! She made my day! I proceeded to open them. Both of these machines were in perfect state, just as I left them three years ago. I put the Genesis and the Sega CD that I bought in California in their original boxes, and connected my old (new) equipment. The system worked fine. It even still had the original game data from three years ago, even though Sega said in their documentation that you have to turn on the Sega CD once a month or so to "refresh" the internal memory. So my records from Sonic CD were still there.

I played a few games on the Sega CD. Gone forever was the nasty sound the other machine made when it read the CDs. Plus now the machine opened the drawer automatically for me to insert my CDs, which is the way it always should be done. Lords of Thunder played fine until the game got to the part were it was badly scratched, were it locked. This is beyond repair; I'll have to buy a used copy somewhere. Oh, well... Other games ran fine, though.

This is not the only thing my mother sent me on that package, by the way. She also sent me some candy (of course), food, and other video game related items. There were the Popful Mail Strategy Guide, all the pamphlets that Sega included with their games, a manual from Haunted House for the Atari 2600 (!!!), and, even better, my old copy of Phantasy Star III, which I thought was lost by now.

All this definitely made my day. I called my mom and thanked her profusely. While it still surprises me that that she went through all the expense and work of sending me my old video game machines to California, in a sense it is not really that surprising. Now she doesn't have to store that anymore, and she can free all that space.

To finish, now I will be able to add to my web site screenshots from my old Sega CD games. I already added Silpheed. And I am amazed about the high quality of the original Sega CD model, and the poor quality of the Sega CD 2.